The Divided States of America

January 3, 11:57 AMProgressive Politics ExaminerJay McDonough

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Igor Panarin is a Russian political scientist who's been predicting for over a decade the U.S. will collapse and break apart in 2010.  And, for whatever reason - envy, revenge, boredom - he's found an eager audience in the Russian state media. I wrote a post about his predictions in November, and the Wall Street Journal had a profile on Panarin this week.

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

In recent weeks, he's been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. "It's a record," says Prof. Panarin. "But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger."

He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

Prof. Panarin is fairly specific about how he envisions the U.S. separating.  Here's his map:

Note: Mr. Panarin is not alone.  Several others have been predicting the demise of the U.S., including another Russian, Dmitry Orlov.  Mr. Orlov's thesis is the conditions in the United States are now quite similar to those that occurred in the Soviet Union just prior to it's collapse and break up into disparate republics.

How about that for some happy news for a Saturday?

(h/t Boing Boing)